whipping\ boy

whipping\ boy
n. phr.
the person who gets punished for someone else's mistake.

"I used to be the whipping boy during my early days at the company," he musingly remembered.


Словарь американских идиом. — СПб., Изд-во "Лань". . 1997.

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  • whipping boy — whipping boys N COUNT If someone or something is a whipping boy for a particular situation, they get all the blame for it. He has become a convenient whipping boy for the failures of the old regime. Syn: scapegoat …   English dictionary

  • whipping boy — ► NOUN ▪ a person who is blamed or punished for the faults or incompetence of others. ORIGIN originally denoting a boy educated with a young prince and punished instead of him …   English terms dictionary

  • whipping boy — n. 1. Historical a boy brought up together with a young prince and required to take the punishment for the latter s misdeeds 2. SCAPEGOAT (sense 2) …   English World dictionary

  • Whipping-boy — (engl., spr. Uipping beu, d.i. Prügelknabe), so v.w. Sühnbock …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

  • Whipping Boy — Allgemeine Informationen Genre(s) Alternative Rock Gründung 1988 Auflösung 1998 Neugründung 2005 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • whipping boy — n [singular] someone or something that is blamed for someone else s mistakes = ↑scapegoat …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • whipping boy — whipping ,boy noun count someone who is punished for someone else s mistake or crime, usually because they have less power than that person …   Usage of the words and phrases in modern English

  • whipping boy — [n] scapegoat dupe, fall guy*, goat*, mark*, patsy*, sacrifice, sucker, target, victim; concept 412 …   New thesaurus

  • Whipping boy — A whipping boy, in the 1600 and 1700s, was a young boy who was assigned to a young prince and was punished when the prince misbehaved or fell behind in his schooling. Whipping boys were established in the English court during the monarchies of… …   Wikipedia

  • whipping boy — noun someone who is punished for the errors of others • Syn: ↑scapegoat • Hypernyms: ↑victim * * * noun, pl ⋯ boys [count] : someone or something that often is blamed for problems caused by other people The coach has become the whipping boy… …   Useful english dictionary

  • whipping boy — {n. phr.} The person who gets punished for someone else s mistake. * / I used to be the whipping boy during my early days at the company, he musingly remembered./ …   Dictionary of American idioms

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